Our annual sales and success kickoff is the one time a year when a large chunk of my global company is in the same place at the same time. It’s a rare occasion, not just because we are all around the world, but also because a large number of us are 100 percent remote employees such as myself. It ends up being a bit of a stamina show to see how many people you can interact with in the space of two business days. You can’t talk to everyone. You want to chat with people you like and work with for obvious reasons. But you also want to meet with new people who you may have worked with briefly, have heard about, or would like to network with just because you either respect them or think they are interesting. Then, there’s also the idea that you want to network and build relationships with those who are influential at your company or who you could personally benefit from. Honestly, I’m done with number 3, so I really try to focus on 1 and 2.

Day 1 was rough. I barely got to talk to anyone for more than 2-4 minutes without getting interrupted and derailed. Then, I’d move on to the next person, and the same thing would happen. So really, the only time I was able to have a real, proper, in-depth conversation with anyone is if we actually went away from the conference area and did our own thing. We try our best to maximize our in-person time together, but it still feels like we’re all being stretched thin. Then, once the conference is over, you realize that there were 4 or 5 other people who were there, but you never even got to say hi to, much less interact with in any meaningful way at all!